"An Amazing Sequel to Final Fantasy X"

The first one was incredible. Was I skeptical with this one? Not at all. I just knew it was going to be as great as the first one, if not better. For those of you who do not know, this is the first real sequel to any kind of Final Fantasy game (Meaning same characters and places, etc). It takes place two years after Yuna defeated Sin, and the Eternal Calm started. Now Yuna, Rikku, and Paine are The Gullwings, a group of sphere hunters. They watch a sphere with a mysterious person who looks like it could be Tidus. So, they go in search of him. That's the basic story. My review is below, but remember the Final Score is NOT an average.

Gameplay (10/10) - Alright, so Final Fantasy games have always been very linear. In most, you get an airship at the end, and that is when you do all the sidequests, and other things you want to do. FFX-2 takes that formula and throws it in the trash. This game is totally different from other FF games, but still has similarities. You always start off on the Celsius, an airship led by Brother. When you go to the mission select screen, you have a choice of going anywhere in Spira. There are sidequests pretty much everywhere. Places that are critical to the story have ''Hotspot'' next to them, so you go there when you want to advance the story. There are multiple endings, and one you can only get by getting 100 percent completion of the game. That means your going to have to do every side quest and story segment, even if it is tiny or doesn't really relate to the main story. There is five chapters, and you finish one once you complete all the story parts, so in order to get 100 percent, everything needs to be done at the right time in the right chapter. The first chapter or so is pretty easy, but the difficulty gets higher when you get in the final chapters. Now instead of having job classes or the Sphere Grid, there is now Garment Grids. These are grids where you can place Dresspheres on. A Dressphere is something that when you press L1 in battle, you can pick different classes to be. For example, Yuna starts out as a gunner, but can change to Warrior. You acquire more Dresspheres and different placed Garment Grids during the course of the game. There are also little symbols on Garment Grids, that when you go over them, they give you a magic attack or a stat booster. Are there Overdrives or Limit Breaks? No. But there are special Dresspheres that you can change into with R1 once you have changed to every class on a Garment Grid. For example, If Rikku has Songstress, Thief, and Black Mage on her Garment Grid; she needs become each one of those during a battle to change to her special Dressphere. But, in order to change into a special Dressphere, you need to get it first.

Story (10/10) - The story in FFX was amazing. FFX-2 has a great one too. I explained it in the Intro, but I'll include a little more. Since the defeat of Sin, groups have been appearing all over Spira. The biggest are The Youth League and New Yevon. Both of these groups have many followers. They tend to get in fights a lot, because they both want to get their hands on spheres of Spira's past. There will be times when Yuna has to decide which to side with. The sidequests ALMOST always have little story segments, that may help you understand some things, or introduce you to some of the newer characters. There are plenty of places to see old characters from FFX also. If you played the first one, which almost everyone who owns a PS2 or has seen one has, then a lot of faces will be recognized. It is fun to see what the characters are doing now.

Graphics/Sound (9/10) - The graphics of FFX-2 are pretty much the same as FFX. That means their awesome. FFX had incredible graphics for it's time, and FFX-2 still has great graphics. Yuna and Rikku have a new look now, a much, much better one. All of the places seem to look a little better too, especially Djose Temple. In regular scenes, they still have all voice acting, and for the most part it's good. If you look closely, you might notice a characters mouth is off, but it doesn't really matter at all. The CG scenes are spectacular. Square-Enix has really got that down. The CG are the best graphics I have ever seen, it’s only too bad that there isn't as many as FFX. There is still a good amount though. The opening CG will blow you away, even with the kind of interesting song. The sound of FFX-2 is great; there are some really light and upbeat songs. There isn't a lot of really moving or incredible pieces, but it's a nice change of pace. And yes, you can still buy music and movie spheres from Luca.

Play Time/Replayability (10/10) - There are three different endings that are known about right now. The first time through, you'll probably get the normal or maybe the good one. But you need to get the perfect ending! It takes 100 percent completion rating, which will take a while. The game can be blown through (Barely any extra stuff done) in maybe 15-20 hours at the least. But to get all the sidequests and other things done, It could take up to 60 hours. Also, when you beat the game, you can start New Game Plus (Chrono fans will know this) which allows your characters to start with the same items they had from the previous game, making it easier to get the big 100 percent. This is an RPG, so it will take a while to beat, but every minute of it is great.

So, I love this game. It is the perfect sequel to FFX. They are both incredible games and need to be owned by everyone. You could rent it, but that would be pretty amazing if you can beat the game fully in a rental time. Just BUY it! Now we need FFX-3!!